


some invisible string tying you to me

by kaleidoscopeminds



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Short and Strange, alcohol mention, but actual 5sos lore referred to, canon liberties taken here, kind of, my first ot4!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidoscopeminds/pseuds/kaleidoscopeminds
Summary: That’s the thing about the four of them, they say they can’t really pinpoint exactly how it happened. How it became the four of them in every single iteration of the words, wrapped and tied together securely, looping in and out and around them all.
Relationships: Michael Clifford/Luke Hemmings/Calum Hood/Ashton Irwin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	some invisible string tying you to me

**Author's Note:**

> hello so the wonderful maggie sent me a prompt on tumblr for "I'm right where I belong" for ot4 and as I currently my blog has been terminated (love my life) I'm doing a direct post to here instead! 
> 
> This is entirely different from anything I've posted before but you know these are the vibes tonight. Title from taylor because it just makes sense!

That’s the thing about the four of them, they say they can’t really pinpoint exactly how it happened. How it became the four of them in every single iteration of the words, wrapped and tied together securely, looping in and out and around them all. The way they fell together reflected the way they started in the first place, jumbled and messy, knotted like unorganised wires in a drawer, and it went a little something like this.

Calum and Michael were first. Best friends for as long as they could remember, it was only natural that they were each other’s first everything, sneaking kisses to “practice” when they were thirteen years old, sloppy and messy, giggling and avoiding each other’s eyes afterwards, only to immediately come back together. The subsequent sexuality crisis to come for both, pulled out of it by the other with a firm grip and returns of whispered “you’re okay I’m your best friend I’m not going anywhere” echoed between them both under the covers on wobbly nights, tilted and hazy with worry. Michael had been first, slightly more assured of his own self and older in most ways, but Calum had followed not too far behind, as was the case in pretty much all their experiences. 

Over the years fumbling kisses turned to more, clumsy and hurried in their rooms at sleepovers; muffling themselves on each other's lips as they learnt themselves and each other, the feeling of safety and support that only the other could bring. And that was that. They were best friends, more than friends, more than boyfriends, more than lovers. But also none of that. Just Michael and Calum. And whenever they strayed with other people, they always found themselves back together, like a piece of elastic wrapped around their wrists, stretching and pulling away only to snap back together as soon as the strain got too much, yanked towards each other to find comfort and solace.

Luke came along a bit later as with the band. Calum reached out to him when he was alone and friendless, sharing kind words in music class and giving him smiles freely which took him off guard when in the rest of his life he felt like he’d always had to pay for kindness, to be expected to give something in return. He antagonised Michael at first with his closeness to Calum, the way he connected with him was something Michael had only seen Calum have with himself before and he felt jealous towards the other boy as a only a fifteen year old can. He felt as if Luke was going to rip Calum away from him for himself, tie the two of them together with his own string and leave Michael out of it, untethered and floating. But Luke didn’t pull, he came towards them, looped them both into his friendship with his shy smile and soft voice and then it was the three of them like it never hadn’t been.

It happened between Luke and Calum next. Luke knew that Michael and Calum were something more than platonic, but then he always felt that they were all something a little bit more than platonic, a feeling running deeper even if it hadn’t resulted in a physical act. Calum and Luke spent most of the first two years of their touring out every night, drinking and living the biggest possible lives they could, dragging whoever back to their bedrooms when they felt like it. It was one night when a drunken thought of “wouldn’t it be easier if we just kissed each other” that neither of them can remember who suggested, which led to Calum and Luke, Luke on his knees in a club bathroom and then a night spent in their hotel room which fortunately the two of them were already sharing. 

It had gotten a little bit messy then, the string tangling with Michael’s elastic, the lines impossible to follow as they snarled and caught each other. Michael trying to pull himself away when he found out, the jealousy bubbling up inside him like the first time Luke came into their lives, hot and unpleasant and threatening to boil over. One night when the tension had almost gotten too much for them all, when Michael had closed his bunk curtain to hide away from the world, Luke had stormed through the bus, ripping open the curtain and landing his lips on Michael’s. Michael had made a soft noise of surprise and froze for a second, before slowly kissing Luke back, and Luke smiled into Michael’s mouth and all of a sudden it was Luke and Michael. The years of the two of them touching whenever possible, of Luke putting himself into Michael’s lap and Michael lying on him at any opportunity finally coming to a head. And it made sense again, untangled and smoothed out into a carefully interlinked braid. Michael and Calum. Calum and Luke. Luke and Michael. And around again.

Ashton was last, technically, although he had always actually been there, a link so tiny but strong nonetheless. A moment of a kind word to help a fumbling Luke in the face of his bullies being a moment that Luke never had forgotten, the only other moment apart from Calum’s offer of friendship that had truly stayed in his mind that reminded him that people were good. A moment at a party like any other where he’d bumped into Michael and they’d only spoken briefly, but enough to keep the loud and excited boy with the long fringe on his mind, long after the beer he’d spilt on Ashton had been washed away. He’d been pulled into the band with no look back or confusion, like he’d always been there, from the moment Calum got down on one knee and proposed his part in it all.

And maybe it was unexpected for Ashton to be part of whatever it was that went on between the three of them. But also it wasn’t because he’d been there the whole time. He’d linked himself to Calum when they went to Hawaii together, days hiking and exploring melting away into lazy kisses over room service that took them both by surprise but not really at all, the two of them becoming Calum and Ashton, entangled on an impulse vacation being the only thing that made sense. With Michael it was another thing entirely, Ashton wrapping around the other man in moments to protect him from the whirlwind that they were growing up in, diverting attention from questions that Michael didn’t have it in him to answer, and the understanding that the two of them were so opposite but also the perfect reflection of each other. A kiss turning into more after long days of interviews cemented Michael and Ashton. Luke moving in with Ashton when everything had gotten too much turned out to be the final missing loop, the two of them rebuilding themselves, winding around each other to haul themselves above the deep and dark swirling water they’d found themselves in, to stop themselves from drowning. Nights spent sharing the same bed meaning they were just a little bit more Ashton and Luke than what they were before.

And so then it was. A tour and a discussion of hotel rooms of sharing what with who. A small suggestion from Luke that maybe they went back to sharing a room even though they were mid twenties and at least twenty-five percent larger than they had been when they used to do it. A cough from Calum, and a comment from Michael that Ash didn’t have to stay with them if he didn’t want to, he could go elsewhere. “I’m right where I belong I think.” He had said after a moment. And then it was, the tie complete, the ribbon that had been fluttering slightly, loose and unattached in uncertainty, had been tied into place and woven securely. Michael, Calum, Luke, Ashton. And around again.


End file.
